The Meaning of Dreams

Author(s): Jonathan Winson

Source: Scientific American , Vol. 263, No. 5 (NOVEMBER 1990), pp. 86-97
Published by: Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/24996977

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 The Meaning of Dreams
Dreams may reflect a fundamental aspect of mammalian
memory processing. Crucial information acquired during
the waking state may be reprocessed during sleep
T
broughout history human beings
have sought to understand the
meaning of dreams. The ancient
Egyptians believed dreams possessed
oracular power-in the Bible, for exam­
ple, Joseph's elucidation of Pharaoh's
dream averted seven years of famine.
Other cultures have interpreted dreams
as inspirational, curative or alternative
reality.
During the past century, scientists
have offered conflicting psychological
and neuroscientific explanations for
dreams. In 1900, with the publication
of The Interpretation of Dreams, Sig­
mund Freud proposed that dreams
were the "royal road" to the uncon­
scious; that they revealed in disguised
form the deepest elements of an indi­
vidual's inner life. More recently, in
contrast, dreams have been character­
ized as meaningless, the result of ran­
dom nerve cell activity. Dreaming has
also been viewed as the means by
which the brain rids itself of unneces­
sary information-a process of "re­
verse learning ," or unlearning.
Based on recent findings in my own
and other neuroscientific laboratories, I
propose that dreams are indeed mean­
ingful. Studies of the hippocampus (a
brain structure crucial to memory), of
rapid eye movement (REM ) sleep and
JONATHAN WINSON started his career
as an aeronautical engineer, graduating
with an engineering degree from the Cal­
ifornia Institute of Teclli,ology in 1946.
He completed his Ph.D. in mathematics
at Columbia University and then turned
to business for 15 years. Because of his
keen interest in neuroscience, howev­
er, Winson started to do research at
the Rockefeller University on memory
processing during waking and sleeping
states. In 1979 he became an associate
professor there and continued his work
on memory and dreaming. His research
has been supported by the Nationalln­
stitute of Mental Health, the National
Science Foundation and the Harry F.
Guggenheim Foundation.
86 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1990
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by Jonathan Winson
of a brain wave called theta rhythm
suggest that dreaming reflects a pivot­
al aspect of the processing of mem­
ory. In particular, studies of theta
rhythm in subprimate animals have
provided an evolutionary clue to the
meaning of dreams. They appear to be
the nightly record of a basic mam­
malian memory process: the means by
which animals form strategies for sur­
vival and evaluate current experience
in light of those strategies. The exis­
tence of this process may explain the
meaning of dreams in human beings.
T
he physiology of dreaming was
first understood in 1953, when
researchers characterized the hu­
man sleep cycle. They found that sleep
in humans is initiated by the hypno­
gogic state, a period of several min­
utes when thoughts consist of frag­
mented images or minidramas. The
hypnogogic state is followed by slow­
wave sleep, so called because at that
time the brain waves of the neocortex
(the convoluted outer mantle of the
brain) are low in frequency and large
in amplitude. These signals are mea­
sured as electroencephalographic (EEG)
recordings.
Researchers also discovered that a
night's sleep is punctuated by periods
in which the EEG readings are irregular
in frequency and low in amplitude­
similar to those observed in awake in­
dividuals. These periods of mental ac­
tivity are called REM sleep. Dreaming
takes place solely during these peri­
ods. While in REM sleep, motor neu­
rons are inhibited, preventing the body
from moving freely but allowing ex­
tremities to remain slightly active. Eyes
move rapidly in unison under closed
lids, breathing becomes irregular and
heart rate increases.
The first REM stage of the night fol­
lows 90 minutes of slow-wave sleep
and lasts for 10 minutes. The second
and third REM periods follow short­
er slow-wave sleep episodes but grow
progressively longer themselves. The
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fourth and final REM interval lasts 20
to 30 minutes and is followed by awak­
ening. If a dream is remembered at all,
it is most often the one that occurred
in this last phase.
This sleep cycle-alternating slow­
wave and REM sleep-appears to be
present in all placental and marsu­
pial mammals. Mammals exhibit the
various REM-associated characteristics
observed in humans, including EEG
readings similar to those of the awake
state. Animals also dream. By destroy­
ing neurons in the brain stem that in­
hibit movement during sleep, research­
ers found that sleeping cats rose up
and attacked or were startled by invis­
ible objects-ostensibly images from
dreams.
By studying subprimate animals, sci­
entists have discovered additional neu­
rophysiological aspects of REM sleep.
They determined that neural control of
this stage of the sleep cycle is centered
in the brain stem (the brain region clos­
est to the spinal cord) and that during
REM sleep neural signals-called pon­
tine-geniculate - occipital cortex (PGO)
spikes-proceed from the brain stem
to the center of visual processing, the
visual cortex. Brain stem neurons also
initiate a sinusoidal wave (one re­
sembling a sine curve) in the hippo­
campus. This brain signal is called the­
ta rhythm.
At least one animal experiences slow­
wave but not REM sleep-and, conse­
quently, does not exhibit theta rhythm
when asleep. This animal is the echid­
na, or spiny anteater, an egg-laying
mammal (called a monotreme) that
provides some insight into the origin of
dreaming. The absence of REM sleep in
the echidna suggests that this stage of
the sleep cycle evolved some 140 mil­
lion years ago, when marsupials and
JACOB'S LADDER, painted in 1973 by
Marc Chagall, depicts a biblical story. Ja­
cob dreams of angels ascending to and
descending from heaven on a ladder.
placentals diverged from the mono­
treme line. (Monotremes were the first
mammals to develop from reptiles.)
By all evolutionary criteria, the per­
petuation of a complex brain process
such as REM sleep indicates that it
serves an important function for the
survival of mammalian species. Under­
standing that function might reveal the
meaning of dreams.
The Interpre­
W
hen Freud wrote
tation of Dreams, the physiol­
ogy of sleep was unknown. In
light of the discovery of REM sleep, cer­
tain elements of his psychoanalytic
theory were modified, and the stage
was set for more neurologically based
theories. Dreaming came to be un-
. derstood as part of a biologically de­
termined sleep cycle. Yet the central
concept of Freud's theory continues
to be recognized-namely, the belief
that dreams reveal our innermost un­
conscious feelings and concerns-and
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continues to be used in psychoanalysis.
Some theorists abandoned Freud al­
together following the neurological dis­
coveries. In 1977 J. Allan Hobson and
Robert McCarley of Harvard Medical
School proposed the "activation-synthe­
sis" hypothesis. They suggested that
dreaming consists of associations and
memories elicited from the forebrain
(the neocortex and associated struc­
tures) in response to random signals
from the brain stem such as PGO
spikes. Dreams were merely the " best
fit" the forebrain could provide to this
random bombardment from the brain
stem. Although dreams might at times
have psychological content, they were
inherently meaningless.
Hobson recently revised his theory,
acknowledging the deep psychological
significance of dreams. The sense, or
plot, of dreams resulted from order
that was imposed on the chaos of neu­
ral signals, he said. "That order is a
function of our own personal view of
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the world, our remote memories," Hob­
son wrote. In other words, the individ­
ual's emotional vocabulary could be
relevant to dreams. In a further revi­
sion of the original hypothesis, Hobson
also suggested that brain stem activa­
tion may merely serve to switch from
one dream episode to another.
Although Hobson and McCarley had
presented an explanation of dream con­
tent, the basic function of REM sleep
admittedly remained unknown. In 1983
Francis Crick of the Salk Institute in La
Jolla, Calif., and Graeme Mitchison of
the University of Cambridge, England,
proposed the idea of reverse learning.
Working from the Hobson-McCarley as­
sumption of random neocortical bom­
bardment by PGO waves and their own
knowledge of the behavior of stimulat­
ed neural networks, they postulated
that a complex associational neural net­
work such as the neocortex might be­
come overloaded by vast amounts of
incoming information. The neocortex

HIPPOCAMPUS
ANATOMY of the brain and cross section of the hippocampus show some of the
regions involved in dreaming. In the hippocampus, incoming information is pro­
cessed sequentially in the dentate gyrus, the CA3 and the CAl pyramidal cells. In
subprimate species, theta rhythm is generated in the dentate gyrus and CAl cells.
could then develop false, or "parasitic ,"
thoughts that would jeopardize the
true and orderly storage of memory.
According to Crick and Mitchison's
hypothesis, REM sleep served to erase
these spurious associations on a reg­
ular basis. Random PGO waves im­
pinged on the neocortex , resulting
in erasure, or unlearning, of the false
information. This process served an
essential function: it allowed the or­
derly processing of memory. In hu­
mans, dreams were a running record of
these parasitic thoughts-material to
be purged from memory. " We dream to
forget," Crick and Mitchison wrote.
The two researchers proposed a re­
vision in 1986. Erasure of parasitic
thoughts accounted only for bizarre
dream content. Nothing could be said
about dream narrative. Furthermore,
dreaming to forget was better ex­
pressed as dreaming to reduce fantasy
or obsession.
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None of these hypotheses seems
to explain adequately the function of
dreaming. On the one hand, Freud's
theory lacked physiological evidence.
(Although Freud had originally intend­
ed to describe the neurology of the un­
conscious and of dreams in his pro­
posed "Project for a Scientific Psycholo­
gy," the undertaking was premature,
and he limited himself to psychoanal­
ysis.) On the other hand , despite re­
visions to incorporate elements
psychology, later theories denied that
dreams had meaning.
E
XPloring the neuroscientific as­
pects of REM sleep and of memo­
ry processing seemed to me to
hold the greatest potential for under­
standing the meaning and function of
dreams. The key to this research was
theta rhythm.
Theta rhythm was discovered in 1954
in awake animals by John D. Green and
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Arnaldo A . Arduini of the University
of California at Los Angeles. The re­
searchers observed a regular sinusoidal
signal of six cycles per second in the
hippocampus of rabbits when the ani­
mals were apprehensive of stimuli in
their environment. They named the
signal theta rhythm after a previously
discovered EEG component of the same
frequency.
Theta rhythm was subsequently re­
corded in the tree shrew, mole, rat and
cat. Although it was consistently ob­
served in awake animals, theta rhythm
was correlated with very different be­
haviors in each species. For example,
in marked contrast to the rabbit, envi­
ronmental stimuli did not induce the­
ta rhythm in the rat. Rats demonstrat­
ed theta rhythm only during move­
ment, typically when they explored. In
1969, however, Case H. Vanderwolf
of the University of Western Ontario
discovered there was one behavior dur­
ing which the animals he studied, in­
cluding the rat, showed theta rhythm:
REM sleep.
In 1972 I published a commentary
pointing out that the different occur­
rences of theta rhythm could be un­
derstood in terms of animal behavior.
Awake animals seemed to show theta
rhythm when they were behaving in
ways most crucial to their survival. In
other words, theta rhythm appeared
when they exhibited behavior that was
not genetically encoded-such as feed­
ing or sexual behavior-but rather a re­
sponse to changing environmental in­
formation. Predatory behavior in the
cat, prey behavior in the rabbit, and ex­
ploration in the rat are, respectively,
most important to their survival. (For
example, a hungry rat will explore be­
fore it eats even if food is placed in
front of it.)
Furthermore, because the hippocam­
pus is involved in memory processing,
the presence of theta rhythm during
REM sleep in that region of the brain
might be related to that activity. I sug­
gested that theta rhythm reflected a
neural process whereby information es­
sential to the survival of a species­
gathered during the day-was repro­
of cessed into memory during REM sleep.
In 1974, by recording signals from
the hippocampus of freely mOving
rats and rabbits, I found the source
from which theta rhythm was generat­
ed in the hippocampus. Together with
the neocortex , the hippocampus is be­
lieved to provide the neural basis for
memory storage. The hippocampus (the
Greek word for "seahorse," which it re­
sembles in shape) is a sequential struc­
ture composed of three types of neu­
rons. Information from all sensory and
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associational areas of the neocortex
converges in a region called the en­
torhinal cortex; from there it is trans­
mitted to the three successive neuronal
populations of the hippocampus. The
signal arrives first at the granule cells
of the dentate gyrus, then at the CA3
pyramidal cells (so called because of
their triangular shape) and finally at the
pyramidal cells of CAL After informa­
tion is processed by this trio of cells, it
is retransmitted to the entorhinal cor­
tex and then back to the neocortex.
My studies showed that theta rhythm
was produced in two regions within the
hippocampus: the dentate gyrus and
the CAl neurons. The rhythms in these
two areas were synchronous. Subse­
quently, Susan Mitchell and James B.
Ranck , Jr., of the State University of
New York Downstate Medical Center,
identified a third synchronous gener­
ator in the entorhinal cortex, and Rob­
ert Verdes of Wayne State Universi­
ty discovered the brain stem neurons
that control theta rhythm. These neu­
rons transmit signals to the septum (a
forebrain structure) that activate the­
ta rhythm in the hippocampus and
the entorhinal cortex. Thus, the brain
stem activates the hippocampus and
the neocortex-the core memory sys­
tem of the brain.
To determine the relationship be­
tween theta rhythm and memory, I
made a lesion in the rat septum. Rats
that had previously learned, using spa­
tial cues, to locate a particular position
in a maze were no longer able to do so.
Without theta rhythm, spatial memory
was destroyed.
Studies of the cellular changes that
bring about memory illustrated the role
THETA RHYTHM
!HE!A � is present during different waking behav­
lOrs ill different species. Each of these behaviors is pivotal to
90 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1990
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of theta rhythm. In particular, the dis­
covery of long-term potentiation (LTP)
in 1973 showed the means by which
memory might be encoded. Timothy V.
P. Bliss and A. R . Gardner-Medwin of
the National Institute of Medical Re­
search in London and Terje L0mo of
the University of Oslo found changes
in nerve cells that had been intensely
stimulated with electric pulses.
Earlier studies had shown that if one
stimulated the pathway from the en­
torhinal cortex to the granule cells of
the hippocampus, the response of these
cells could be measured with a record­
ing electrode. Using this technique,
Bliss and his colleagues measured the
normal response to a single electric
pulse. Then they applied a long series
of high-frequency signals-called tetan­
ic pulses-to this pathway. After the
train of tetanic stimuli, a single electric
pulse caused much greater firing in the
granule cells than had been observed
prior to the experiment. The height­
ened effect persisted for as long as
three days. This phenomenon, termed
LTP, was precisely the kind of increase
in neuronal strength that could be ca­
pable of sustaining memory. LTP is
now considered a model for learning
and memory.
LTP is achieved by the activity of the
NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) recep­
tor. This molecule is embedded in the
dendrites of the granule cells and the
CAl cells of the hippocampus as well
as in neurons throughout the neocor­
tex. Like other neuronal receptors, the
NMDA receptor is activated by a neu­
rotransmitter-glutamate in this case.
Glutamate momentarily opens a non­
NMDA channel in the granule cell den-
APPREHENSION
the animal's survival. In placental and marsupial animals, the­
ta rhythm is present during rapid eye movement
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drite, allowing sodium from the extra­
cellular space to flow into the neuron.
This influx causes the granule cell to
become depolarized. If the depolar­
ization is sufficient, the granule cell
fires, transmitting information to other
nerve cells.
Unlike other neuronal receptors,
NMDA possesses an additional proper­
ty. If a further activation of glutamate
occurs while the granule cell is depolar­
ized, a second channel opens up, al­
lowing an influx of calcium. Calcium
is thought to act as a second messen­
ger, initiating a cascade of intracellular
events that culminates in long-lasting
synaptic changes-or LTP. (The deSCrip­
tion given here has been necessarily
Simplified. LTP is the subject of exten­
sive ongoing investigation.)
Because the tetanic impulse applied
by Bliss and his colleagues did not oc­
cur naturally in the brain, the question
remained as to how LTP was achieved
under normal circumstances. In 1986
John Larson and Gary S. Lynch of the
University of California at Irvine and
Gregory Rose and Thomas V. Dunwid­
die of the University of Colorado at
Denver suggested that the occurrence
of LTP in the hippocampus was linked
to theta rhythm. They applied a small
number of electric pulses to CAl cells
in the rat hippocampus and produced
LTP but only when the pulses were sep­
'
arated by the normal time that elaps­
es between two theta waves-approxi­
mately 200 milliseconds. Theta rhythm
is apparently the natural means by
which the NMDA receptor is activated
in neurons in the hippocampus.
Work in my laboratory at the Rocke­
feller University duplicated Larson and
REM SLEEP
( REM) sleep.
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 strated that individual CAl neurons in
the rat hippocampus fired when the
awake animal moved to a particular
location-namely, the neuron's place
field. The implication of this finding
was that the CAl neuron fired to map
the environment, thereby committing
it to memory.
In 1989 Pavlides and I located two
CAl neurons in the rat hippocampus
that had different place fields. We re­
corded from both cells simultaneous­
ly. After determining the normal firing
rates in awake and asleep animals, we
SYNAPTIC CLEFT
positioned a rat in the place field of one
11-""'7-''--- POSTSYNAPTIC of the neurons. The neuron fired vigor­
MEMBRANE ously, mapping that location. The sec­
ond cell fired only sporadically because
it was not coding space. We continued
recording from the two pairs of neu­
•
� rons as the rat moved about and then

(@ •
• �.
••
••
•
� entered several sleep cycles. Six pairs
of neurons were studied in this manner.

:�.
GLUTAMATE
@
•
••
••
We found that neurons that had cod­
ed space fired at a normal rate as the
animal moved about prior to sleep. In
sleep, however, they fired at a signifi­
• cantly higher rate than their previous
sleeping baseline. There was no such
• ••
increase in firing rate during sleep in
• •• neurons that had not mapped space.
•

i=a:
This experiment suggested that the re­
processing or strengthening of infor­
mation encoded when the animal was
•••
• awake occurred in sleep at the level of
• •
• individual neurons.
• • •
• •
•

E
• vidence that theta rhythm encodes
• •
memories during REM sleep may
DEPOLARIZATION LTP
be derived not only from neuro­
scientific studies but also from evolu­
NMDA RECEPTOR activation induces long-term potentiation (LTP), a model for
memory. The release of the neurotransmitter glutamate (left panel) opens a non­ tion. The emergence of a neural mecha­
NMDA receptor channel, allowing the influx of sodium, which depolarizes the neu­ nism to process memory in REM sleep
ron. If a further release of glutamate occurs while the cell is depolarized (center suggests differences in brain anatomy
panel), the NMDA receptor opens a second channel, which allows calcium to flow between mammals that have that as­
in, leading to LTP. LTP occurs as a result of increased sodium through the non­ pect of the sleep cycle and those that
NMDA channel (right panel) and the subsequent greater depolarization of the cell. do not. And in fact, such differences
clearly exist between the echidna and
the marsupials and placentals.
Lynch's CAl findings, but this time in tex and the hippocampus. There they The echidna has a large convoluted
the hippocampal granule cells. Constan­ are partitioned into 200-millisecond prefrontal cortex, larger in relation to
tine Pavlides, Yoram]. Greenstein and I "bites" by theta rhythm. The NMDA re­ the rest of the brain than that of any
then demonstrated that LTP was de­ ceptors, acting in conjunction with the­ other mammal, even humans. I believe
pendent on the presence and phase of ta rhythm, allow for long-term storage it needed this huge prefrontal cortex to
theta rhythm. If electric pulses were of this information . perform a dual function: to react to in­
applied to the cells at the peak of the A similar process occurs during REM coming information in an appropriate
theta wave, LTP was induced . But if the sleep. Although there is no incoming manner based on past experience and
same pulse was applied at the trough information or movement during REM to evaluate and store new information
of the waves-or when theta rhythm sleep, the neocortical-hippocampal net­ to aid in future survival. Without theta
was absent-LTP was not induced. work is once again paced by theta rhythm during REM sleep, the echidna
A coherent picture of memory pro­ rhythm. Theta rhythm might produce would not be able to process informa­
cessing was emerging. As a rat ex­ long-lasting changes in memory. tion while it slept. (The echidna does,
plores, for example, brain stem neu­ The results of one of my further ex­ however, show theta rhythm when for­
rons activate theta rhythm. Olfactory periments served to show that spatial aging for food.) For higher capabilities
input (which in the rat is synchronized memory was indeed being stored in the to develop, the prefrontal cortex would
with theta rhythm, as is the twitching rat hippocampus during sleep. John have to become increasingly large-be­
of whiskers) and other sensory infor­ O'Keefe and ]. Dostrovsky of the Uni­ yond the capacity of the skull-unless
mation converge on the entorhinal cor- versity College in London had demon- another brain mechanism evolved.

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 © 1990 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC

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 REM sleep could have provided this
new mechanism, allowing memory pro­
cessing to occur "off-line." Coincident
with the apparent development of REM
sleep in marsupial and placental mam­
mals was a remarkable neuroanatom­
ical change: the prefrontal cortex was
dramatically reduced in size. Far less
prefrontal cortex was required to pro­
cess information. That area of the brain
could then develop to provide ad­
vanced perceptual and cognitive abili­
ties in higher species.
The nature of REM sleep supports
this evolutionary argument. During the
day, animals gather information that
involves locomotion and eye move­
ment. The reprocessing of this infor­
mation during REM sleep would not
be easily separated from the locomo­
tion related to the experience-such
disassociation might be expecting too
great a revision of brain circuitry. So to
maintain sleep, locomotion had to be
suppressed by inhibiting motor neu­
rons. Suppressing eye movement was
unnecessary because this activity does
not disturb sleep.
Eye movement potentials, similar
to PGO spikes, accompany rapid eye
movement in the waking state and also
during REM sleep. The function of these
signals has not yet been established,
but they may serve to alert the visual
cortex to incoming information when
the animal is awake and may reflect
the reprocessing of this information
during REM sleep. In any case, PGO
spikes do not disturb sleep and do not
have to be suppressed-unlike motor
neurons.
W
ith the evolution of REM sleep,
each species could process the
information most important
for its survival, such as the location of
food or the means of predation or es­
cape-those activities during which the-
200 MILLISECONDS
� I+-
11111 11111 11111 IIIII � '\J\N\I\M
ELECTRIC PULSE THETA RHYTHM
LTP in the granule cells of the hippocampus is achieved by
theta rhythm. Electric pulses, which have been separated by
94 SCIENTITIC AMERICAN November 1990
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ta rhythm is present. In REM sleep this
information may be accessed again and
integrated with past experience to pro­
vide an ongoing strategy for behavior.
Although theta rhythm has not yet
been demonstrated in primates, includ­
ing humans, the brain signal provides a
clue to the origin of dreaming in hu­
mans. Dreams may reflect a memory­
processing mechanism inherited from
lower species, in which information im­
portant for survival is reprocessed dur­
ing REM sleep. This information may
constitute the core of the unconscious.
Because animals do not possess lan­
guage, the informatioI). they process
during REM sleep is necessarily sen­
sory. Consistent with our early mam­
malian origins, dreams in humans are
sensory, primarily visual. Dreams do
not take the form of verbal narration.
Also in keeping with the role REM
sleep played in processing memories in
animals, there is no functional necessity
for this material to become conscious.
Consciousness arose later in evolution
in humans. But neither is there any rea­
son for the material of dreams not to
reach consciousness. Therefore, dreams
can be remembered-most readily if
awakening occurs during or shortly af­
ter a REM sleep period.
Consistent with evolution and evi­
dence derived from neuroscience and
reports of dreams, I suggest
dreams reflect an individual's strategy
for survival. The subjects of dreams
are broad-ranging and complex, incor­
porating self-image, fears, insecurities,
strengths, grandiose ideas, sexual ori­
entation, desire, jealousy and love.
Dreams clearly have a deep psycho­
logical core. This observation has been
reported by psychoanalysts since Freud
and is strikingly illustrated by the work
of Rosalind Cartwright of Rush-Presby­
terian-St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago.
Cartwright is studying a series of 90
11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111
V\Mf\NWV
/ PULSES AT PEAK
�V\Mf\NWV
11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111
PULSES AT TROUGH
200 milliseconds (the time between the peaks of two theta
waves), applied at the peak of theta rhythm result in LTP.
© 1990 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
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subjects who are undergoing marital
separation and divorce. All the subjects
are clinically evaluated and psychologi­
cally tested to ascertain their attitudes
and responses to their personal crisis.
Cartwright's subjects are also awak­
ened from REM sleep to report their
dreams, which are then interpreted by
the subjects themselves without ques­
tions that might influence their inter­
pretation. In the 70 individuals studied
to date, the dream content conveys the
person' s unconscious thoughts and is
strongly correlated with the manner in
which he or she is coping with the cri­
sis in the waking world.
Although the topic "chosen" for con­
sideration during a night's sleep is un­
predictable, certain of life' s difficul­
ties-as in the case of Cartwright's sub­
jects-so engage psychological survival
that they are selected for REM sleep
processing. In the ordinary course of
events, depending on the individual's
personality, the themes of dreams may
be freewheeling. Moreover, when joined
with the intricate associations that
are an intrinsic part of REM sleep pro­
cessing, the dream' s statement may be
obscure.
Nevertheless, there is every reason to
believe that the cognitive process tak­
ing place in Cartwright's subjects oc­
curs in every individual. Interpretation
that of the coherent statement that is being
made depends on the individual's trac­
ing of relevant or similar events. These
associations are strongly biased toward
early childhood experience.
M
y hypothesis also offers an ex­
planation for the large amount
of REM sleep in infants and
children. Newborns spend eight hours
a day in REM sleep. The sleep cycle is
disorganized at this age. Sleep occurs
�
in 50- to 60-minute bouts and begins
with REM rather than with slow-wave
(f)6
�
!:i
3 LTP
�o
o 10 20
MILLISECONDS
�6
�
*
3
NO LTP
::!o
::2
o
I N TEL MAT H COP ROCE S S 0 R, S

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personal computer ing and CAD programs.
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386 and 387 are trademarks of Intel Corporation. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. C 1990 Intel Corporation.

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 CORTEX \
PREFRONTAL
. reason for dreaming. The revised ver­
sion of the Hobson-McCarley activa­

�
tion-synthesis hypothesis aknowledges
the deep psychological core of dreams.
In its present truncated form, the hy­
pothesis of random brain stem acti­
CAT OPOSSUM ECHIDNA
vation has little explanatory or predic­
tive power.
The Crick-Mitchison hypothesis pro­
vides a function for REM sleep-re­
verse learning -but it does not apply
to narrative, only to the bizarre ele­
ments of the dream. What this implies
50-
with regard to REM processing in low­
er species must be defined before the
theory can be evaluated further. In ad­
dition, the Crick-Mitchison hypothesis
as applied to the hippocampus would
suggest that neurons fire randomly
(j)
z 100----­ during REM sleep, providing reverse
o
::::i learning. Instead, in my experiment on
.....I

� the neurons that coded space, these

o neurons fired selectively, implying an
(!) orderly processing of memory.
«
(/J Further study will continue to eluci­
a:
« date the meaning of dreams. In partic­
w
>- ular, an experiment is needed to deter­
EGG-LAYING mine whether eliminating theta rhythm
MAMMALS during REM sleep alone results in a
memory deficit. Because theta rhythm
has not been demonstrated in primates,
SLOW-WAVE SLEEP
200------------ it may have disappeared as vision re­
placed olfaction as the dominant sense.
An equivalent neural mechanism may
exist in the hippocampus that peri­
odically activates the NMDA receptor.
These studies and others to come will
probe fundamental aspects of memory
2�--------------------------- processing and the neuroscientific ba­
EVOLUTIONARY TREE shows the divergence of placentals and marsupials from sis of human psychological structure.
monotremes. The echidna, which does not possess REM sleep, has a larger pre­
frontal cortex compared with the rest of its brain than does any manunal, even hu­
mans. It is larger than in similarly sized animals, including the opossum and cat.
FURTHER READING

INTERSPECIES DIFFERENCES IN THE Oc­

sleep. By the age of two, REM sleep is quires the additional REM sleep time. CURRENCE OF THETA. Jonathan Winson
reduced to three hours a day, and the For reasons he could not possibly in Behavioral Biology, Vol. 7, No. 4,

adult pattern has been established.
Thereafter, the time spent in REM sleep
gradually diminishes to a little less
than two hours.
REM sleep may perform a special
function in infants. A leading theory
proposes that it stimulates nerve
growth. Whatever the purpose in in­
fants may be, I suggest that at about
the age of two, when the hippocampus,
which is still in the process of devel­
opment at birth, becomes functional,
REM sleep takes on its interpretive
memory function. The waking infor­
mation to be integrated at this point in
development constitutes the basic cog­
nitive substrate for memory-the con­
cept of the real world against which lat­
er experiences must be compared and
interpreted. The organization in mem­
ory of this extensive infrastructure re-
have known , Freud set forth a pro­
found truth in his work . There is an
unconscious, and dreams are indeed
the "royal road" to its understanding.
However, the characteristics of the un­
conscious and associated processes of
brain functioning are very different
than Freud thought. Rather than being
a cauldron of untamed passions and
destructive wishes, I propose that the
unconscious is a cohesive, continual­
ly active mental structure that takes
note of life's experiences and reacts ac­
cording to its own scheme of interpre­
tation. Dreams are not disguised as a
consequence of repression. Their un­
usual character is a result of the com­
plex associations that are culled from
memory.
Research on REM sleep
that there is a biologically relevant
pages 479-487; 1972.
Loss OF HIPPOCAMPAL THETA RHYTHM
RESULTS IN SPATIAL MEMORY DEFICIT IN
THE RAT. Jonathan Winson in Science,
Vol. 201, No. 435 , pages 160-163;
1978.
BRAIN AND PSYCHE: THE BIOLOGY OF
THE UNCONSCIOUS. Jonathan Winson.
Anchor Press, Doubleday, 1985 .
LONG-TERM POTENTIATION IN THE DEN­
TA TE GYRUS IS INDUCED PREFEREN­
TIALLY ON THE POSITIVE PHASE OF 0-
RHYTHM. Constantine Pavlides, Yoram
J. Greenstein, Mark Grudman and Jon­
athan Winson in Brain Research, Vol.
439, pages 383-387; 1988.
iNFLUENCES OF HIPPOCAMPAL PLACE CELL
FIRING IN THE AWAKE S TA TE ON THE
AcTIVITY OF THESE CELLS DURING SUB­
SEQUENT SLEEP EPISODES. Constantine
Pavlides and Jonathan Winson in Jour­
nal of Neuroscience, Vol. 9, No.8, pag­
suggests es 2907-2918; August, 1989.

96 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN November 1990

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He's tough, unforgiving, obsessive,
totally inflexible and not very tolerant.
Perfect.

True, every Lufthansa mechanic has a certain

uncompromising attitude toward his job. One
could say it's a result of the eight years of inten­
sive training he undergoes. Apprenticeships
that teach him the working function of every
nut and bolt on our aircraft. But we think it's some­
thing more. A drive. A strength of character. T his
can't be taught. It has to be there from the start .
W e like t o think o f it a s a passion. A passion
you can feel in everyone who works at
Lufthansa, whether they're maintaining our
engines on the ground or your comfort in the air.
A passion for perfection that ensures you the
best flying experience possible.

A passion for perfection�M Lufthansa

Lufthansa is a participant in the mileage programs of United, Delta.
USAir and Continental/Eastern. See your Travel Agent for details.

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